Video profiles of some of the hottest startup companies in America are in the spotlight on a brand-new website from Charles River Ventures, one of the most successful venture capital companies in America.  The venture firm commissioned DigiNovations to produce the series of two- to three-minute snapshots, featuring CRV investments from California to Massachusetts.

“Meet some of the companies we believe are headed for greatness,” proclaims the website.  The first profiles feature Charles River portfolio companies Jitterbug, Eons, Vlingo, Geni, Twitter, Verenium, and Conduit.

DigiNovations Senior Editor Mike Chapman gave a presentation at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Post Production World Conference in Las Vegas about shared storage for post-production facilities this past April.  Some 200 attendees listened as Chapman described the advantages and potential pitfalls of integrating shared storage solutions into a post production workflow.

DigiNovations has implemented a “storage area network” (SAN) within its Concord-based production studios, hooking together eight post-production workstations on a high-speed optical fiber network to a central storage array with more than 20 terabytes of storage.  This enables any post-production workstation within DigiNovations to access production project files with performance comparable to storage on a local hard disk, and allows multiple editors to collaborate on a single project.

Chapman was a beta-tester for shared storage at leading companies such as Avid, Pinnacle and Facilis before joining DigiNovations in 2006.

When Harvard Business School held a big gala last night at Gillette Stadium near Boston to celebrate its 100th anniversary, a film produced by DigiNovations kicked off the festivities.  “Living the Mission” draws its material from historic photographs, interviews with graduates and faculty, and contemporary videography to tell the story of Harvard Business School, using the past as a platform to build toward its next century.

John Keltonic composed a lively score to go with the photos and interviews.

The film is being shown to kick off many dozens of centennial events for Harvard Business School around the world during 2008.

Mont FennelThe most experienced business news reporter on New England television is joining DigiNovations as Senior Producer.

Mont Fennel is a four-time Emmy award-winner and a 16-year veteran at New England Cable News (NECN). His nightly business reporting on the nation’s largest 24-hour regional news channel reached 3.7 million subscribers in more than 1,050 cities and towns across all six New England states. Fennel’s reporting won four Emmy awards for NECN, and was nominated 17 additional times. “Mont Fennel is an NECN pioneer,” said NECN News Director Thomas R. Melville. “He was on our air on Day One - March 2, 1992 - and he has been there ever since as the only full-time business reporter on television in New England. He is a masterful producer of television news reports. As a master, he has used the medium to bring complex business topics to the small screen in creative and interesting ways. He is a great storyteller.”

Fennel joins the staff of one of the fastest-growing creative video production firms in New England. As a leader in the field of web video and internet TV, DigiNovations lately has seen client interest explode in the area of internet video production. “Internet video demands a blend of new skills and attitudes with well-established disciplines,” said DigiNovations executive producer Michael Kolowich. “What appealed to me about Mont is his instinctive eye toward finding the core of the story and then using the medium to bring that story alive. I believe he’ll flourish in the new medium of internet video, just as he’s done in traditional broadcast journalism.”

“We will miss him — in our newsroom and on our air,” noted NECN’s Melville. “I predict a very bright future for Mont as he brings his vast set of skills to his new position with DigiNovations.”

Fennel also served as Boston correspondent for the Nightly Business Report on public television.

In Iowa, Romney videographer Michael Kolowich (behind, on top of the MittMobile) covers the Straw Poll VictoryDigiNovations Executive Producer Michael Kolowich was featured in an interview by blogger Jason Bonham this morning, talking about Mitt TV.  Since the suspension of the Romney for president campaign, Michael has also been blogging quite actively on the Web Video Expert blog about the experience of running the Tactical Video Unit for the campaign.  Two posts are especially relevant:

• “Ten Lessons from Mitt TV”
• “In Political Campaigns, YouTube is a Two-Edged Sword”

Ellyne LonerganWe’re pleased to report that an extraordinary producer and former public television executive has joined the DigiNovations team as Senior Producer, effective today.  Ellyne Lonergan brings a deep background in creating both documentary and television series for national distribution, as well as a wide array of client-driven marketing and training programs.

Ellyne recently relocated to the Boston area from Tampa, Florida, where she was Senior Vice President of Content for public television station WEDU, and has run her own production company, Glass Onion Productions.

“Ellyne brings a tremendous range of skills to DigiNovations that will strengthen and broaden our offerings to clients,” said executive producer Michael Kolowich.  “Her graceful style of writing, producing, and client relationship-building fits right in with our approach.  We couldn’t be more pleased to add her to the team.”

Click here for a complete profile of Ellyne Lonergan.

DigiNovations swept all four top awards given out for corporate video production today in the annual VISTA awards competition sponsored by the National Professional Videographers Association of New England.  The awards were presented at the Pro Video 2008 show in Easton, Massachusetts.  Executive Producer Michael Kolowich, Director of Photography Bill Charette, and Senior Editor Mike Chapman were on hand to receive the awards.

Here’s a rundown of the winners, as well as links to the videos themselves:

• Platinum Award - “Beginnings” - Client: Beginnings Child Development Center (not yet released for the web)
• Gold Award - “Learning 24/7” - Client: Sacred Heart University
• Silver Award - “Inside the Case Method” - Client: Harvard Business School
• Bronze Award - “Consider the Abbey” - Client: Portsmouth Abbey School

This is the fourth consecutive year in which DigiNovations has placed among the top corporate video productions of the year in the VISTA competition, and the third out of the last four years in which DigiNovations has captured the top Platinum award.

The next time our clients work with us, chances are there will be something important missing — videotape!

DigiNovations began a major digital technology upgrade this week, as it started to swap out its fleet of HDV cameras with the latest new high-definition technology from Sony, the XDCAM EX1.  Many, many new improvements come with this format — full 1920x1080 resolution, dramatically improved audio fidelity, larger video pickup chips for improved low-light capability and improved depth-of-field.  But the most obvious new feature is the fact that these cameras don’t record on tape; they record their hi-def magic onto solid-state memory cards instead.

Executive Producer Michael Kolowich with one of the new XDCAM cameras“The tapeless workflow means we can be much more efficient with our post-production efforts,” said DigiNovations Executive Producer Michael Kolowich.  “Often we’ll come back from a two-day, two-camera shoot with 7 or 8 hours of footage, and it takes a whole day to digitize the footage.  Now, we can start the editing process in the car or on the airplane on the way in, and we can be editing within minutes of reaching the studio.”

A 16GB solid-state memory card stores 50 minutes of hi-def videoDigiNovations Director of Photography Bill Charette and Senior Editor Mike Chapman are working on designing all of the new workflow approaches that go with the new format.  “Among other things, we need to almost immediately transfer all our footage to our central storage facility,” said Kolowich, “because the memory cards are very expensive and we need to constantly reuse them.”

The move to the XDCAM high-definition format reflects DigiNovations’ commitment to stay on the leading edge of high-quality, low-cost video technology that keeps production affordable while keeping the bar on production values very high.

The winners of the 23rd Annual Admissions Advertising Awards were announced today, and once again this year, our clients at every level — college, graduate schools, and private schools — took home awards in both the Video/CD Viewbook and TV Ad categories.

• Harvard Business School took home the Gold Award for Video Viewbook in the Graduate School category for the film “Inside the Case Method,” produced by DigiNovations for its MBA admissions effort.
• Sacred Heart University was recognized with the top prize for Video Viewbooks for colleges between 5,000 and 10,000 students for “Learning 24/7”, a project produced by DigiNovations in partnership with Keating Associates.  Sacred Heart also won a Merit award for a DigiNovations-produced TV Ad that runs regularly during NCAA sports broadcasts.
• Portsmouth Abbey School was awarded a Silver Award among Secondary Schools for ”Consider the Abbey,” an admissions video produced by DigiNovations in 2007.
• And St. Joseph’s College of New York was awarded Merit recognition for a TV Ad produced by DigiNovations.

We’re proud of the work we’ve done for New England’s great educational institutions — not only in admissions but also in fundraising and institutional image.  Congratulations and thank you to all the winners!

Another DigiNovations web video project is creating a sensation in the legal recruiting world.  This time, it’s the Navy JAG who’s taken to the web with a powerful video recruiting message.

Our legal marketing partners, Legal Insight Media, Inc., developed the strategic approach for the video and DigiNovations was responsible for all the production (videography) and post-production (editing and encoding for the web).  The result is a hard-hitting, 3-minute video created from nine interviews with recent Navy JAG recruits.

The result, writes Larry Bodine in a posting today on the LawMarketing Blog, is a another example of why “video is a must for recruiting Web pages.”

Larry quotes LCDR Colleen M. Shook, JAGC, USN, JAG Corps Detailer for Accessions and Recruiting, as saying, “This compelling Web video captures the sense of adventure that attracts lawyers to become JAGs better than any other medium could.”

The U.S. Navy JAG and Legal Insight Media join a growing list of clients who have turned to DigiNovations to fill their recruiting web video needs — from international law firm Ropes & Gray LLP to Harvard Business School to Sacred Heart University.

Watch the Navy JAG Recruiting Video

DigiNovations founder and Executive Producer Michael Kolowich has been awarded the Bob LeBar Vision Award by the world’s largest professional association of videographers, WEVA International.  The award was presented at the association’s annual professional conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Kolowich (left) talks with WEVA Chairman Roy Chapman and WEVA Hall of Fame member Hal SliferThe award, given in honor of gifted video artist and animator Bob LeBar, honors “forward thinking that enables us all to progress to a higher level.”

The WEVA Special Awards Committee cited Kolowich’s groundbreaking work in internet TV channels and bringing this approach to all of his work, from creating Mitt TV for the Romney for President Campaign to the dozens of channels he’s built for institutions across New England.

DigiNovations’ groundbreaking work on the Romney Presidential campaign is featured in a cover story in a professional trade magazine for videographers.  “Campaign 2008: Captured on Mitt TV”, by Dan Argenas, details the way in which DigiNovations’ ideas and efforts in tactical web video have changed the complexion of presidential politics in 2008.

The article is published in WEVA Magazine, the magazine of WEVA International, the world’s largest professional association for videographers.

Read the Article

DigiNovations has just completed a flurry of production projects for the presidential campaign of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, culminating in a film documenting Romney’s big win at the nation’s first test of presidential vote-getting power.

The Mitt TV crew in Ames, Iowa. (l to r) Executive producer Michael Kolowich, audio engineer Russ Tomlinson, videographer Larry LeCain, producer Jillayne Smyth, and director of photography Bill CharetteIn late January, under the direction of Executive Producer Michael Kolowich and producer Jillayne Smyth, two video crews from DigiNovations spent 24 hours on the road in Iowa with both Governor Romney and two of his sons, offering a rare inside look behind the scenes as the candidate and his family rounded up support for the August 11th Iowa Straw Poll.  Then it was back to the studio to edit more than 26 hours of footage into a two-part documentary, called “24 Hours on the Trail” and a movie trailer to promote the video on YouTube and other venues.  The documentary and the trailer may be viewed on Mitt TV.

Two weeks later, it was back to Iowa to cover the big Iowa Straw Poll, which Governor Romney won by a big margin.  Here, multicamera coverage and speed were the imperative, and the crew turned around a three-camera cut of Romney’s major speech, a five-minute documentary on the Straw Poll win, and a 30-second TV spot within 48 hours.

Harvard Business School has released a DigiNovations-produced film, “Inside the HBS Case Method” that takes viewers deep inside the teaching approach that has made HBS one of the top teaching institutions in the world.  The 12-minute film will be used extensively to inform prospective MBA students about the school’s approach.

At the very heart of HBS is the case method — the teaching method it invented, refined, and has placed at the core of the learning experience. Though the case method is often imitated by other graduate programs, those in the know agree that there is no other school in the world that practices the case method at such a high level as HBS.

For the first time in its 100-year history, Harvard Business School invited a camera team inside the HBS case classroom to explore what makes the HBS Case Method so special.

Calling on DigiNovations and its executive producer Michael Kolowich, Harvard commissioned “Inside the Case Method,” and is showing it to every prospective student, faculty member, and other member of the community who really wants to understand what’s so special about this remarkable method of teaching and learning.  The film is featured as part of the HBS Admissions website and is shown as part of the live presentation on the admissions road show.

View “Inside the HBS Case Method”

With a rapidly-growing portfolio of clients and changing nature of the business, DigiNovations announced today that veteran producer Barry Ouellette has joined the team as Senior Producer.  Barry comes to the company from The Hanover Insurance Group, where for more than 10 years he has led the company’s video production and web development efforts.

“Increasingly, our clients are asking us to work at the intersection of video storytelling and web presentation,” noted Michael Kolowich, president and executive producer of DigiNovations.  “Barry’s deep experience in both domains will continue raising the bar in the services we offer clients as they think about how to tell their story across these critical visual media.”

Profile of Barry Ouellette

The National Professional Videographers Association awarded its top honor for Corporate Video to DigiNovations at its annual VISTA awards presentation last night.  “What It’s All About” — a 60-second commercial produced for Sacred Heart University, won the Platinum award in the annual competition for top corporate video honors.

“Sometimes our best work is what we produce under the gun,” said Michael Kolowich, executive producer of DigiNovations.  “Sacred Heart’s Marketing Agency, Keating Associates, came to us with an urgent request to create a public service announcement to be played at the halftime of NCAA basketball contests.  We had barely two weeks to turn around the project.”

The 2006 award marks the second consecutive year that DigiNovations has won top honors for video from NPVA.  Two other DigiNovations productions were honored in the corporate video category: “Growing in Knowledge and Grace”, produced for Portsmouth Abbey School; and “A Typical Day”, produced for Latham & Watkins LLP and Legal Insight Media.

An article in today’s National Law Journal features the innovative new Internet TV channel DigiNovations has created for “tech-savvy” Ropes & Gray LLP, one of the nation’s premier law firms.

The Flash-video-based Ropes & Gray Recruiting Channel features eleven vignettes about the firm and its five offices across the country, and the firm’s story is told entirely in the voice of its associates.

Some excerpts from the article:

Ropes & Gray’s Web videos that feature only associates were conceived as marketing project, but are now perceived as a valuable recruiting tool for the Boston-based firm, said Chief Marketing Officer Jim Durham. The firm posted the videos on its site starting this month.

“It represents the reality that recruiting and marketing are actually working much more closely together at all major firms because the competition among top firms for great law students is increasingly intense,” Durham said.

The video clips, which come from unscripted interviews with a wide range of associates, feature informal discussions about what it’s like to work at the firm.

The article also talks about the work of DigiNovations’ strategic partner in legal marketing, Legal Insight.

Videos can help law students narrow down their choices and decide which firms they want to visit, said Marx. Legal Insight has produced videos for Latham & Watkins and has just started a project with the U.S. Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps.

“The majority of firms have not dipped their toe in the water yet,” Marx said. “Those that have are taking advantage of the capabilities of impact, personalization and connection. I would expect it to be big in 2007.” ‘Huge’ for recruitment

The video will be a “huge recruiting tool” for the Navy JAG, said Lieutenant Commander Colleen Shook, Navy JAG Corps detailer for accessions and recruitment. Shook said JAG is reviewing its recruiting Web content to see if it meets the needs of law students, who like to do their own research online.

DigiNovations is Legal Insight’s production partner in all its full-motion video production.  It produced the Latham & Watkins films mentioned in the article, and will be creating the Navy JAG film in conjunction over the next eight weeks with the Legal Insight team.

Governor Mitt Romney turned more than a few heads this week when he launched not only a Presidential Campaign Exploratory Committee but also a highly sophisticated internet TV channel, called “Mitt TV”, woven into his new website at www.mittromney.com … and DigiNovations was right in the middle of designing and implementing this new capability for the campaign.

The governor’s team wanted to take advantage of the dramatic changes in web video distribution and presentation over the past year, and turned to DigiNovations for help in building an internet TV channel.  Working with web designers Molecular and internet TV platform developer PermissionTV, the DigiNovations team specified, implemented, and launched MittTV in a matter of weeks.

Impressive as it is at launch (see CNN’s review of the site on launch day), MittTV is very much a work in progress.  The PermissionTV platform, with its robust content-management system and its extensive customization capabilities, gives the Romney team and DigiNovations the ability to keep evolving both the video content and its presentation as the campaign unfolds.

Web video is likely to play an entirely new role in getting political candidates’ faces, words, and accomplishments in front of voters in this new national campaign cycle.  This trend is being seen not just in politics but across the entire landscape of corporate and institutional communications.  DigiNovations is dedicated to keeping its clients at the absolute forefront of this important new trend.

It may look at first glance like a modest suburban car dealership, but from their location 20 miles northwest of Boston, the team at Acton Toyota has set out to revolutionize the way cars are bought in the Internet Age.  The online team at Acton Toyota has thought carefully through every stage of the traditional car buying process, and has come up with myriad innovations in implementing its online car buying service.

Nobody can tell that story better than happy customers, and so Acton Toyota set out to document that experience in video, and they asked DigiNovations to help them think through how to tell the story.  True to the dealership’s mission and style, the resulting piece is full of utility and service, not self-congratulatory sales pitches.

“Inside the Online Car Buying Experience” is built as a modular video series within an intenet TV channel on the Brightcove platform.  The first three episodes, launched with the channel this week, guide viewers on what to look for and how to prepare at three critical stages of the buying process.

The voice of the customer comes through loud and clear in these pieces, and the dealer spokesmen in the video segments come through as experts, not as sales people.  The combination — of happy customers and their expert guides — is very effective testimony to the new realities of online car buying.

Here’s what the client had to say:

For the third consecutive year, the League of American Communications Professionals has recognized DigiNovations as one of the top creators of publicity materials.  The LACP gave 2006 Spotlight Awards to six DigiNovations projects, and named DigiNovations the designation of Agency of the Year/Bronze.  The LACP Spotlight awards evaluate nearly 1000 entries in an annual international competition for the best creative work.

DigiNovations capital fundraising film for Portsmouth Abbey School, “Growing in Knowledge in Grace”, won best-in-class Platinum honors and was judged to be one of the Top 100 publicity materials of 2006.

Winning Gold Spotlight Awards in their respective classes were films created for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (Body + Soul Magazine), Concord Chamber of Commerce, Microwave Radio Communications, and Sacred Heart University, while its promotional film for Methods Machine Tools won a Silver award.